Hi its Nitin. Just like any other guy i am surrounded with some thoughts 24x7. Even when i am watching Sachin smashing the bowlers, some thing keeps making round in my mind, that may be far far away from cricket. I call them weird thoughts.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

After more than a month of CWG bashing few of us are realizing that bashing organizing committee of CWG is not going to change anything.We get so critical of others who failed in their responsibility. What about us? As a citizen, few things are expected from us as well. Least we could do is to support our country and back our athletes. And if we don’t do that then aren’t we standing shoulder to shoulder with the Kalmadi’s?

People have raised the argument that:

Organizing committee’s corruption has siphoned taxpayer’s money. Hence there is no point in supporting the games. Hello!!! Nobody is asking you to back OC. Do hell with OC. Let them go to hell after the games are finished. Nobody is going to remember them. But people are going to remember the games; the world is going to remember the games. If it doesn’t go well, it is going to be a blot on Brand India. It’s our games, not Mr. Kalmadi’s. We should pray to make it a success as it is for our own good. Nobody is asking us to go and work there. Just give your whole hearted support. Don’t entertain the negative discussions that are happening. Very recently I got a chance to see the pictures of venues of the various events. Those pics are breath taking. We missed them because we were focused on negatives only.

If everything goes fine and games are successful, people will forget that corruption of this magnitude has taken place. And the culprits will go scot free. We are living in a country where a new scam surfaces almost every six month. And each and every scam unearthed is bigger in magnitude than the previous one. How many culprits you remember have been nailed and punished properly? Lalu in animal husbandry, Soren, Telgi, and many more. None of them are riding on success of any games or event. Still they are out of law’s stretched arm. I am not advocating the culprits here. My point is, success of the games is not linked to the prosecution of the scammer. Let the games be a huge success. This is going to benefit India as a whole. Be a bit selfish here. Having a good game will help you hold your head high.

Such a huge sum of money could have been used in better education and other things that Indian people need.Do we have any idea what is the magnitude of the funds government allocated for education/ agriculture/poor cause in their latest five year plan? The corruption taken place in CWG is not even 100th fraction of it. If the huge sum of five year is not good enough then how come the corruption amount of CWG would help?

Media keeps harping on 70,000 crores being spent. Just to give you correct figures - only Rs 670 crore has been spent directly on the games -- on building stadia. The rest of the money has been spent on infrastructure development of the capital, which is not directly linked to the games e.g. Rs 3,000 crore for extension of Metro, Rs 18,000 crore for augmenting DTC bus services and Rs 3,700 crore on flyovers and bridges, Rs 2,000 crore on power plants.

Do we say the same for other sports which are well organized like cricket or tennis? These sporting events also cost a bomb. Let’s scrap everything then. Rather than advocating a better management of games, we are asking to scrap the games. We are solving the wrong problem here.

Organizing Games hasn’t helped India in any way.Isn’t the tourism industry of India is hugely benefitted by the games? Wasn’t Delhi Metro was implemented in Delhi on priority for CWG? Wasn’t there immense emphasis on making Delhi green? Wasn’t CNG was brought in to Delhi?CWG has transformed Delhi - Delhi Metro was fast tracked for the same - It now carries more than 20 million people every day. More than 50 new roads and flyovers were built. Delhi is much more greener now. CP has got a new look. There is a fleet of 5000 new buses instead of killer Blue line just because of CWG - which has benefited millions of people. They all (and many more) were stepping stones towards making a strong case in favor of Delhi as a city eligible to host games.Events of this magnitude are big money spinners. They help business and in turn the economy.